With Miami and Broward’s carnival season just days away, NBC 6 News explores the history of steel drums, also known as steel pans.

With bumps hammered into shiny metallic surfaces, these instruments create a different and unique sound that is synonymous with Caribbean music.

There is a local band looking to keep traditional music alive in South Florida. The members of the Melo Groove Steel Orchestra practice two to three times a week, repeating each song for a perfect performance.

For 16-year-old Zaila Williams, it was love at first sight.

“Since I saw their first performance in 2016, I wanted to join the group,” she said. “When I first heard it, I wanted to learn it.”

The Steel Orchestra is made up of drummers between the ages of sxi and 82 years old. All members have a common passion and love for rhythmic rhythm.

Musical director Gérard Boucaud has a long history and a love for the steelpan. He fell in love with the instrument from an early age. Boucaud says there is only one place in the Caribbean that can claim to be the “birthplace” of steel drums.

“The history of this instrument is singularly turned in Trindade and Tobago. That’s where he was created and that’s Genesis, “he said.” But his story began in Africa. “

The battery would eventually become carnival in Trinidad and Tobago, then run by the British. There was even a period in the 1870s when the British government tried to ban certain aspects of carnival, especially percussion.

Today, the tradition continues with the Melo Groove Steel Orchestra transmitting the story one beat at a time. For more information on the South Florida Carnival Celebration, click here.